The 16-year-old daughter of stranded Starliner astronaut Barry “Butch” Wilmore has spoken up about her father’s extended stay on the International Space Station (ISS) and blamed “negligence” and “a lot of politics” for the prolonged mission. Mr Wilmore has been stuck in space since June 2024 along with Indian-origin astronaut Sunita Williams. Their mission, which was initially expected to last ten days, was extended due to technical issues with Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft. They are now scheduled to return to Earth on March 19 – over nine months later than planned.
Amid this, Mr Wilmore’s daughter Daryn has expressed how she feels about her father’s extended stay on the ISS. In a TikTok video, the 16-year-old shared how she longs to hug her father again and bemoaned all the family moments he has missed during the orbital mishap.
“He’s missed out on a lot. It’s less the fact that he’s up there sometimes; it’s more the fact of why. There’s a lot of politics, there’s a lot of things that I’m not at liberty say in that I don’t know fully about. But there’s been issues, there’s been negligence,” she said in a video posted on February 6, as per the New York Post.
However, despite her frustration, Ms Wilmore said she’s not depressed over his space station dilemma. She said that her family gets to speak to her father almost daily and said he’s keeping busy.
“Recently we found out he will most likely be coming back in mid-March, which is so exciting, and I miss him so much, and I can only wait to hug his neck and see my sister graduate high school and see the show I’m in right now,” the teen said.
“But, fingers crossed, things could always change and especially with this whole thing. We’ve had so many changes. “He’s just been bummed, but he’s fine. My dad has always been resilient,” she added.
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Ms Williams and Mr Wilmore launched on June 5, 2024, aboard Boeing’s Starliner capsule for what was originally planned as a short test mission. But technical concerns with the spacecraft led to multiple delays, pushing their return to March 19.
NASA confirmed that it was working with Elon Musk’s SpaceX to bring the astronauts back to Earth from the ISS “as soon as practical.” The space agency noted that SpaceX has been conducting regular crewed missions every six months, ensuring smooth astronaut transitions.